The controversial permanent supportive housing facility proposed for a residential area of Avondale that caused outrage amongst Avondale community members took a small blow today when Cincinnati City Council members Pam Thomas and Charlie Winburn introduced a motion at a City Council meeting to rescind council's original support for the facility.

The proposed facility, Commons at Alaska, would be a 99-unit housing facility providing residency and supportive services to the area homeless population, particularly those with severe mental health issues, physical disabilities and histories of alcohol and substance abuse. CityBeat covered extensively the Avondale community's concerns about the location of the facility and how the project's developers felt the facilitywas misunderstood ("Home Invasion," issue of Sept. 4).

On Feb. 13, City Council offered its official support for the Commons at Alaska project in a resolution, a decision members of Avondale 29, the group formed to oppose the project, say was made without proper community outreach and neglect for proper considerations of the facility's effects on the already-blighted surrounding neighborhood. At that time, Christopher Smitherman and Cecil Thomas (before he resigned his position) were the only two members of council who did not vote to pass the resolution.

The motion reads: "When the resolution was heard by City Council, a small minority of the 18,000 members of the Avondale Community expressed their support for the development. Further, the North Avondale Community Council has voiced their opposition to the development. With this resolution, the majority of the community who are opposed to the development are being heard."

The developer, National Church Residences, is a well-respected developer and manager of housing facilities for the homeless nationwide. In June, the project received more than $1 million in tax credit financing from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, which would allow NCR to move forward with building plans and eventually begin construction in summer 2014.

City Council's official support was originally cited in NCR's application to the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, which may have factored in to OHFA's decision to award the tax credits. The motion will be voted on in council's Budget and Finance Committeeon Monday, Sept. 16 at 1 p.m.

Higher revenues could help restore funding to human services and parks

City Council could partly or totally undo the latest budget cuts to human services, parks and other areas by using higher-than-expected revenues from the previous budget cycle, Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls announced today.

When City Council passed the budget in May, it was unclear how much revenue would be left over from fiscal year 2013, which ended June 30. Now, revenues are expected to come in higher than originally projected.

The full revenue numbers should be released next week, allowing City Council to evaluate its options for what and how much can be restored.

Human services was cut by about $500,000 in the last budget, putting the program at $1.1 million. Funding to parks was also reduced by $1 million down to $7 million.

But the funding could be restored, at least in part, within a month, Qualls said.

Qualls and other city officials previously told CityBeat they intended to restore human services funding and other cut programs with higher-than-expected revenues and perhaps the parking lease, but Qualls' announcement today was the clearest indication that it's actually happening.

The vice mayor made the announcement at a mayoral forum hosted by the Human Services Chamber of Hamilton County, which consists of various local social service groups. Qualls, who's running for mayor this year, was speaking at the event with John Cranley, who's also running for mayor.

Human services funding flows through several local agencies that focus on providing aid to the homeless and poor. Programs include sheltering, job training and drug rehabilitation.

Cincinnati has historically set a goal of dedicating 1.5 percent of its operating budget to human services, but only 0.3 percent of the latest budget went to the program.

Over-the-Rhine, Central Business District march comes amisdt Justice Center debate

If you had to guess how many people are in Cincinnati are considered homeless, what would be your guess? Would it be anywhere near 7,000?

That's the number of Cincinnatians cited in a 2012 report
from Strategies to End Homelessness that are either staying in shelters or in places
not meant for human habitation.

The Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition will coalesce to recognize the plight of those 7,000 when it
holds its annual Homeless Awareness March on Saturday, Oct. 26 starting
at 3 p.m. at Buddy’s Place, a permanent housing facility
for the homeless located at 1300 Vine St. in Over-the-Rhine.

Josh Spring, executive director at GRHC, says the march will explore areas in Over-the-Rhine and the Central Business District particularly plagued by homelessness. There will be about 10 stops, each of which will be marked by a speech from representatives of several advocacy groups, including the Interfaith Workers' Center, OTR Community Housing, Streetvibes, People's Coalition for Equality and Justice and the Drop Inn Center.

The march comes at a particularly auspicious time for
GRHC, which recently helped four homeless plaintiffs file a lawsuit
against the Hamilton County Sheriff’s office for depriving homeless
people of their constitutional rights by threatening to arrest people
who sleep or inhabit the common areas around the Hamilton County
Courthouse and Hamilton County Justice Center downtown.

Those areas have recently become the center of a public
health debate between groups like GRHC and county officials, who have been forced to clean up urine
and feces left behind the homeless and argue they
just don’t have the resources to keep up.

The GHRC held a protest on Oct. 16 in front of the courthouse asking Sheriff Neil to rescind the policy, the same day the lawsuit was filed.

In an effort to compromise, Spring and other supporters have asked the county to at least wait to stick to the policy until the winter shelter opens in December, but county officials are hesitant to ignore the cleanliness problem for that long.

Advocates such as Spring, however, argue the city should
take a “prevention first” approach instead by figuring out what will
keep Cincinnatians from becoming homeless in the first place.

Spring says he hopes the march will draw both people who have come specifically to protest displacement and others who come to learn about the nature of homelessness in Cincinnati. "We really hope people walk away with some passion to go and do something about this," he says.

Last year's marchwas centered around protesting Western & Southern's manipulative legal disputes with the Anna Louise Inn, which provides safe and affordable housing to low-income women. The battle came to an end in May when Cincinnati Union Bethel, which owns the Inn, signed an agreement with Western & Southern to move from Lytle Park to Mount Auburn.

Cincinnati lost 4,000 jobs
from June to July, but it gained 14,000 between July 2012 and July this
year, far above the 3,000 necessary to keep up with annual population
growth, according to data released yesterday by the Ohio Department of
Job and Family Services. The seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate was
at 7.1 percent in July, down from 7.3 percent in June and 7.4 percent
in July 2012. The labor force shrunk in comparison to the previous month
and year, which means the unemployment rate fell partly because many
people stopped looking for jobs. In comparison, Ohio’s seasonally
unadjusted unemployment rate was 7.2 percent in July and the U.S. rate
was 7.4 percent.

More JobsOhio controversy: The state panel that approves
tax credits recommended by the privatized development agency has never
said no, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
Gov. John Kasich and Republicans say the Ohio Tax Credit Authority is
supposed to be an independent watchdog on JobsOhio, but both JobsOhio
and the Ohio Tax Credit Authority have their boards appointed by the
governor. Democrats have been highly critical of JobsOhio for its lack
of transparency and privatized nature, but Republicans say both are good
traits for an agency that needs to move fast to land job-creating
development deals.

Meanwhile, two Democrats in the Ohio House are pushing a ban
on Ohio officials, including the governor, receiving outside pay. The
proposal is largely in response to JobsOhio recommending $619,000 in tax
credits in 2012 and 2013 to Worthington Industries, a company that paid
Kasich through 2012 for his time on its board. The Ohio Ethics
Commission refused to investigate the potential conflict of interest
because it said Kasich made a clean break from Worthington when he was
elected.

Hamilton County taxpayers might have to put up $10 million
to give the Cincinnati Bengals a high-definition scoreboard, thanks to
the team’s lease with the county. Economists generally see stadiums as
one of the most over-hyped, unsuccessful urban investments, according to The Nation.

No City Council member supports the tea party-backed pension amendment that would privatize Cincinnati’s pension system so future city workers, excluding
cops and firefighters, contribute to and manage individual 401k-style
accounts. Currently, Cincinnati pools pension funds and manages the
investments through an independent board. City officials and unions
claim the measure will cost the city more than the current system and
hurt retirement gains for city employees. But tea party groups say the
amendment is necessary to address Cincinnati’s growing pension costs,
including an $862 million unfunded liability. CityBeat wrote about the amendment and the groups that could be behind it in further detail here.

Ohio is partnering up with the Jason Foundation to provide training and information
to teachers, coaches, other school personnel, parents and students
about suicide, the second leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds
after car accidents. The measure aims to curb down suicide rates.

Hamilton County and Cincinnati are pursuing joint funding
of technology upgrades for 911 services, and the two local governments are moving
permitting services to one location, according to a statement from
Hamilton County Commissioner Greg Hartmann’s office. Hartmann has long pursued more city-county collaboration so both can run more
efficiently and bring down costs.

The Ohio Department of Health (ODH) yesterday reported 2013’s first case of West Nile Virus.
A 72-year-old woman in Cuyahoga County is apparently being hospitalized for the disease. ODH Director Ted Wymyslo said in a statement that,
while Ohio has dealt with West Nile Virus since 2002, cases have dropped
in the past year.

Although this year’s cuts are being undone, City Hall has been cutting resources
to the homeless, long-term unemployed, crime victims and casualties of
domestic abuse since 2004. Aid to those groups is part of human services
funding, which is supposed to receive 1.5 percent of the operating
budget but currently gets a quarter of that at 0.4 percent. To explain
the decade of cuts, the city administration typically points to citizen
surveys and meetings conducted as part of the priority-driven budgeting
process. But a CityBeat analysis of the demographics of the process found they were skewed in favor of the wealthiest
Cincinnatians and against low-income people, who benefit the most from
human services. For the agencies that receive funding, the history of cuts is even
more worrying as Cincinnati prepares for more budget gaps in the next
few years.

The state of Ohio will execute Billy Slagle on Aug. 7,
even though the prosecutor’s office behind the charges asked the Ohio
Parole Board to grant him clemency. The parole board denied the request,
and Gov. John Kasich last week declined to commute the sentence to life
in prison. Slagle was convicted in 1988 of murdering a 40-year-old
woman in a gruesome stabbing. His family says he was in an alcohol- and
drug-fueled haze at the time and has a history of problems at home, including
domestic abuse, that presents extenuating circumstances.

Two longshot mayoral candidates are really upset
about Cincinnati’s primary system: Independent Sandra “Queen” Noble
sent an F-bomb-laden email to debate organizers, and Libertarian Jim
Berns quit the race. Under the current primary system, multiple mayoral
candidates are allowed to run. But come Sept. 10, voters will select the
top two contenders in a primary. Those frontrunners will then face off
in a final election on Nov. 5 to pick who will take over City Hall on
Dec. 1. Noble and Berns claim the current system favors the two
frontrunners — Democrats Roxanne Qualls and John Cranley — by helping
them get the most exposure through televised debates after the primary
election.

Cranley has raised more money
than Qualls in the mayoral race, according to campaign finance reports
filed yesterday. Cranley has raised about $472,000, compared to $348,000
for Qualls. Cranley also has about $264,000 in the bank, while the
Qualls campaign has about $192,000 in hand.

Undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children will be eligible for in-state tuition
at Ohio public colleges, following a decision from the Ohio Board of
Regents. The change will save the students thousands of dollars at the
state’s public schools, which were charging exorbitant out-of-state and
international rates before. The undocumented immigrants qualify for
legal benefits because of an executive order signed by President Barack Obama earlier in the year
that prevents the federal government from prosecuting them. The order
falls short of actual legalization on the books, but it grants many benefits under state and federal law.